A review by valeriebrett
The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hampl

I feel it wouldn’t be fair for me to rate this book because it just wasn’t what I thought it would be. I’m actually shocked this is billed as a travel book; really this is a smattering of random writing that doesn’t exactly fit together and also wouldn’t each individually be enough on its own. I don’t really buy that this is a book about solitude; it’s just about whatever the writer wanted to write about. I hated the second-person usage, where the writer wrote to her late husband (“you said...”). There were sentences and paragraphs that were so beautifully-written and thought-provoking that I can appreciate her talent and way of thinking, but overall I was bored & almost stopped reading many times. This is more a personal memoir of writing & losing a spouse, than a travel or history book.